


Slowly Suffocating, We're Dying

by Voidfish



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guilt and Regret, Nightmares, little bit of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 23:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12157224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidfish/pseuds/Voidfish
Summary: Lucretia dreams of smoke, smoke and static covering her friend. They’re drowning in the things they can’t see, in the things she has blinded them to, and right before she wakes up the smoke fades just enough for them to see her face.





	Slowly Suffocating, We're Dying

**Author's Note:**

> I asked for song prompts and I was given "Smoke" by Daughter and ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh boy.  
> Warnings for overall themes of guilt and lots of Lucretia angst. There's a knife in Taako's bit. I think that's it.  
> Not proofread so let me know if there's any glaring mistakes.  
> This is the first full thing i've written in forever which is a yay but also its past midnight and i have a 9 am class so also boo.

Now we're both in the room, and we're breathing the fumes  
No doors this time, just a gap in the roof  
Light floods in, heaven, we're blind  
And slowly suffocating, we're dying

In a smoke filled room

***

Lucretia dreams of smoke, smoke and static covering her friend. They’re drowning in the things they can’t see, in the things she has blinded them to, and right before she wakes up the smoke fades just enough for them to see her face.

And then she wakes up, and it’s the beginning of another lonely day as the only person alive who can ever know the burden of what they all have done.

Of what she has done.

***

There are nights when they each visit her, separately, as if they take their turn torturing her. 

***

Merle stands in front of her, holding a bleeding figure, their face blurred. Lucretia takes the bait, no matter how many times this happens, she runs to her friend and cradles the head of whoever is the victim this time. At first it was just a faceless threat, but as she has made new connections her nightmares have adapted to fit this. Some nights it’s Carey, other nights Avi or Johann. Tonight it’s Killian.

“Merle, you have to heal her,” Lucretia says, and she notices that her words come out as thick static. The static swirls around her, and Merle refuses to move.

“Merle,” she pleads, and she reaches her hands out to Merle’s shoulder. At her touch he finally turns to her, except something’s wrong. His eyes are filled with static, out of his mouth comes puffs of smoke in a steady stream. “Heal her,” Lucretia says, softly. Merle finally reacts and turns towards Killian in this moment. He kneels before her and places his hands on her chest. 

 

And then smoke pours from Merle’s fingers and reaches Killian and it covers her mouth and Killian squirms. Lucretia screams, and tries to grab Merle, to get him to stop, doesn’t he realize he’s killing her?

And then Merle turns to her and she can see his eyes are blank, devoid of the hope and joy that he struggled to keep throughout the hardships they went through. 

“What am I good for, anyway?” He asks. 

And then he disappears. 

***

Carey, grateful for a job, gives her some plants from planetside. To liven up her office, Carey had said when handing them over.

They withered, despite Lucretia’s efforts to keep them safe. She thought it fitting.

***

Lucretia opens her eyes to Lup sitting in front of her, smiling, her bleached blonde hair gathered into a high ponytail, and she’s too happy to see her to realize something is wrong. There is no backdrop, they are somewhere covered top to bottom with smoke, save for the patch of grass they sit on.

“Lup,” Lucretia croaks out, and her throat is parched. 

Lup laughs. “That’s me,” she says. 

“Where have you been?” Lucretia doesn’t want to ask, she wishes she hadn’t, but it slips from her mouth.

Lup grins. “I’ll show you,” she says as she rises. Lucretia has no choice but to follow, and so she does. Every step Lup takes makes another patch of grass appear, and Lucretia has to sprint to keep from falling through whatever illusion this is. She knows this is a trap. She can’t help but follow. It’s Lup.

Lup leads her to a city that’s covered in fire, and Lucretia forgets for a moment that this can’t be real because the details are so horrible.

And Lup leads her to the center of the town, finally stopping and turning to Lucretia, arms opened wide. There’s a wagon on fire next to her.

“This is where I’ve been,” Lup announces cheerfully-and then she throws herself onto the fire. Lucretia screams, but the sound doesn’t come out.

Lup turns to smoke, and as it moves upwards the smoke turns to static.

***

It doesn’t rain on the moon, so there’s no need for umbrellas. Lucretia is so, so incredibly glad for that.

***

It is only fair that after Lup her twin follows. 

She sees him at the marketplace, immaculately dressed. He looks healthy and happy, and he chatters to a handsome, faceless man that clings to his arms.

Lucretia waves.

And Taako sees her, and his eyes narrow, and then they widen. And suddenly he’s behind her, a knife in his hand being held against her neck.

“Who the fuck are you, homie?” Taako asks, but his voice is cold and vacant in a way that Lucretia hasn’t heard in years. 

“I’m...I’m your friend,” she chokes out, careful not to move.

Taako spins her around and she sees how he truly looks, all glamours and disguises gone.

There’s dirt caking his skin, and he’s painfully thin. His hair is dull and greasy. 

But that’s not the scary thing. No, the terrifying thing truly is his eyes. They’re vacant and cold, even more than they were the first time they had met, or when the hunger had first been discovered. 

He hid it, tried to bluff around it, but Taako couldn’t escape that he felt for his friends, for the people near him. He cared for them, he nursed them and joked with them and made them feel like kings or queens. And he couldn’t say it out loud, because with his past of running lies and delusions were the only options, but he still had his actions. He still made chicken noodle soup when Barry got sick, he still played catch with the Light of Creation with Magnus, he still braided flowers into Merle’s beard, and painted Davenport’s nails, and had wine and paint-by-numbers nights with Lucretia, and he still loved Lup with all of his heart, with every ounce of his body.

But the Taako in front of Lucretia was hollow. Empty. She had taken his heart away from him. She had drained him.

“I don’t have friends,” he says, and then everything is smoke.

***

When she has to stay on the Starblaster, Lucretia makes herself sandwiches in her room. The kitchen hurts-it has too many memories.

***

When Barry visits her it’s in her office at the Bureau of Balance.

He looks terrible, eyes bloodshot and with heavy bags under them, and his face deathly pale. 

“Just let me see her,” he begs.

Lucretia tries to keep her voice level. “I don’t know where she is. I’m sorry, Barry, I can help you find her, but-”

“No,” Barry says, face flushed, tone harsh. He takes a step forward. “You know where she is.”

“I d-don’t,” Lucretia says, and her calm composure starts to fall apart.

“You have to,” Barry screams, and he’s crying now, steadily moving forward towards her. Lucretia doesn’t run away. She starts crying, too.

“Barry, believe me. If I knew where she was I would have brought her to you long ago.” She stands, placing her hands firmly on the desk. Barry reaches her. A teardrop falls on the desk.

“I know,” Barry says softly. “I just miss her so much,” he says, rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his deep red robe. 

“We’ll find her,” Lucretia promises. 

Barry smiles and nods. He reaches his hand up to Lucretia’s shoulder.

And then he crumbles. 

One of the Seekers stands behind him, wand aimed his way, confusing the moment of intimacy for an attack.

And Barry’s a litch, it would be fine-except her room is covered with holy artifacts. 

There’s bright red sparks, and Barry’s lich form twitches, looks at Lucretia with a look of pure betrayal, and then disappears into smoke and static.

***

There’s a rule on the moon base, a dress code instruction mistaken for wanting an air of sophistication: no fucking bluejeans.

***

Magnus Burnsides stands in front of a desk, holding a photo in his hands. It’s of the Starblaster crew together, on the beach world.

He turns to her slowly. “I don’t wanna lose this,” he whispers, the quietest Lucretia has ever heard him.

Lucretia shakes her head. “It’s only for a little bit, Magnus,” she says. “I promise.”

Magnus frowns. “I can’t trust you. I mean, I don’t even know you.”

Lucretia takes in a sharp breath. “Magnus?”

Magnus knits his brows together. “Is that me?”

Lucretia doesn’t trust her voice. All she can do is nod.

Magnus blinks and thinks this over. “Alright, I’m ok with that.”

His eyes are no longer pupil and iris, instead they are filled with static.

Lucretia bites her lip. “Is there anything you want or need to know right now, Magnus? I can imagine you’re feeling quite disoriented.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a question,” Magnus laughs. “How do I breathe?” And then he falls.

Before Lucretia can grab him he turns into smoke.

***

Lucretia cannot abide it. Absolutely, under any circumstances, no dogs on the moon.

***

For Davenport the dream is different.

In the dream, he’s ok. They sit together with tea and talk about everything, from theoretical psychics to who on the base will probably start fucking who. It’s fun, but it never lasts long.

The nightmare is waking up and having to deal with what she did to her captain.

She finds him in the mornings after the nightmares and hugs him tight and whispers apologies in his ear that he cannot understand.

At first she tries to fix the situation. She tries everything, with no avail. The damage has been done.

The only thing that Lucretia can do is be by him, help him, and hope that one day soon she can find a way to bring him back. If there even is a way to bring him back anymore.

***

Lucretia wakes up from horrible dreams, dreams that drown her with guilt and regret, and she prepares herself for the day.

No rest for the wicked, she tells herself.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is @infernaltwink come scream about Lucretia with me.


End file.
